


HEAT SINK

by spicyshimmy



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Slash, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 02:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mild Leviathan spoilers. Post-DLC. Shepard needs warming up. Also, he might just be afraid of going back in the water. <i>‘Hey, Shepard,’ Kaidan said, standing and turning the corner from the couch, past the set of model ships and Shepard’s blinking terminal. ‘I was wondering when you’d get back. …You know your lips are blue?’</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	HEAT SINK

‘So, Commander Shepard,’ Diana said that night, Shepard finally out of his armor, ‘is there _anything_ you’re _actually_ afraid of?’

‘Sure there is,’ Shepard replied. ‘But more importantly than that, I just don’t have the time to let it sink me.’

‘Words to live by,’ Diana said. ‘As always. This has been Diana Allers, live from the SSV Normandy, bringing you the latest—and might I say greatest?—from Commander Shepard himself. Thanks for the inside story, Commander.’

Shepard’s molars were close to crunching like ice cubes. ‘For you, Diana? Anytime.’

The recording powered down and Diana checked her footage while Shepard kept his teeth from clacking together. Only a few more seconds and then he was free to go—to get under the covers and turn up the central heat in the captain’s cabin, grab a couple of hours of shut-eye and hope to hell that his nightmares shifted up for a while, from deep forest running to deep sea diving.

There was more pressure down there than there was in space. Not the metaphorical kind—for once, Shepard was talking literal. Even if it wasn’t reassuring, he could still put a name to it.

A name that _wasn’t_ Harbinger or Sovereign or Leviathan.

‘Looks like we’re good,’ Diana said, light fading. ‘So, you can tell me—how was it _really_?’

‘I’m still shaking water out of my ears,’ Shepard replied.

The headache lingered—and the cold, getting under his armor and then, under his skin. Temperature regulations on the Normandy were strict and usually comfortable, maybe even a little _too_ hot when the transmissions were coming in and the latest trouble hit. Always a reason to sweat.

The stuff on the back of Shepard’s neck came away clammy when he wiped it off.

_Should’ve packed a sweater,_ he thought. Kaidan’s mom seemed to be on target with that one, though there wasn’t much a sweater could do against all that water. White and churning on the surface, so deep down dark that there wasn’t any light left, only a few flares to lead the way.

And—what else?—it all led to a metaphysical conversation with implications way beyond Shepard’s capacity for processing. He was still wrapping his head around the big damn stuff, not that he had the tentacles for that anyway: something enormous, and old, and potentially benevolent, or potentially so evolved that none of this was its problem anymore, that good and bad were like two different colors on wavelengths it’d quit seeing. Or it knew how to accept the things it couldn’t change, a point in the cycle Shepard hadn’t quite reached yet.

Not to mention the part where it decided to wear a couple familiar faces just for the hell of it.

_You want the inside scoop, Diana?_ Shepard thought, doors sliding open, music still on inside. He must’ve left it like that when he woke up in the morning and headed off to meet with Dr. Bryson. And it must’ve been playing the whole time—it would’ve kept on playing even if Shepard hadn’t made it back. _Well, it might’ve been the pressure down there, or knowing I’d left my team back on the surface with a bunch of really old dead people and Reaper to deal with, but when Anne Bryson started talking to me with the voice of the Leviathan down there, I almost started laughing. That’s the key to survival in the galaxy, people. Maintaining your sense of humor even when you’re afraid of swimming._

Shepard’s fingernails were blue. He chafed his hands together but there was a certain kind of warmth he couldn’t give himself no matter how much hope Diana said he gave other people.

‘Hey, Shepard,’ Kaidan said, standing and turning the corner from the couch, past the set of model ships and Shepard’s blinking terminal. ‘I was wondering when you’d get back. …You know your lips are blue?’

‘Must be the light,’ Shepard replied. ‘Did you know, according to the fansites on the extranet, blue’s my favorite color?’

‘Yeah.’ Kaidan had already turned the heat up. ‘Mine, too.’

‘Still got that headache,’ Shepard said.

‘Tell me about it,’ Kaidan replied.

Shepard just had. He thought about chuckling and Kaidan did chuckle, a thin sound like the level of oxygen Shepard got down there, the quick breath he’d taken when he realized the surface of the water was only that—just scratching the surface.

It wouldn’t’ve helped to tell his squad that the one thing that’d ever given him the heebie-hanars was the water. There was something about it he just couldn’t get past, the opposite of anti-matter, going down instead of going up. James wouldn’t ever let him forget it, for one thing, and besides, Shepard just didn’t have the time to let it sink him.

Kaidan touched his temple, thumbing over the fresh buzz where the pulse was warm—but it didn’t make much of a difference. There wasn’t enough blood to pump heat through the rest of him.

‘Hey,’ Shepard said, ‘that’s my line.’

‘Not this time, Shepard,’ Kaidan told him, and moved him to the bed. ‘I even brought a sweater—but I don’t think you’re going to need it.’

He rested his arms over Shepard’s arms like sleeves, his chest over Shepard’s chest and one leg hooked over Shepard’s hips for good measure, the gray at _his_ temple resting on Shepard’s throat kind of like a collar.

‘You planning on being my sweater, Kaidan?’ Shepard asked.

‘Well, if the sweater fits,’ Kaidan replied.

Shepard didn’t tell him this time about the water thing, either. The stars passed overhead, glass separating them from the sky. Maybe, Shepard thought, he was just a fish in the tank after all, neon light filtering over his skin.

‘I’m not letting you sink, Shepard,’ Kaidan said.

Or Shepard had fallen asleep, and he’d dreamed the whole thing. Diving through the dark, swimming without fins—until he broke through the choppy surface, and finally started breathing again. 

**END**


End file.
